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The Duty of the Christian Scholar to the Masses, 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF CONVOCATION OF 



: J^hri Jfree College, dtnek, 



JULY 19, 1854. 



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BY THE REV, WILLIAM A, MATSON, M, A. 



Published by request of the House. 



UTICA: 

D. C. GROVE, PRINTER, NO. 113 GENESEE STREET. 

1854. 



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The Duty of the Christian Scholar to the Masses. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF CONVOCATION OF 



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JULY 19, 1854. 



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BY THE REV, WILLIAM A, MATSON, M. A. 



Published by request of the House. 




UTICA: 

D. C. GROVE, PRINTER, NO. 113 GENESEE STREET. 

1854. 



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ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the House of Convocation: 

When, in years gone by, in college halls, we labored to 
fit ourselves for the active duties of life, the aim of our 
instructors was not merely to store the mind with informa- 
tion, but to discipline the intellect, to teach it how to work, 
how to grapple with the realities we were to encounter in 
the world. And when we entered upon our various spheres 
of labor as citizens, we found ourselves in duty bound and 
by necessity compelled to take a practical view of what- 
ever subject with which w^ came in contact. Even among 
those who have chosen the professions, where we must still 
linger among books, and where the mind must still investi- 
gate principles, and study as while under-graduates we 
learned to do, he alone has been useful who has been able 
to turn to account the knowledge thus acquired, and send 
forth his thoughts upon an active mission for the benefit of 
the world. Let this justify one unexpectedly called to ad- 
dress you, for choosing a practical subject and treating it in 
a practical manner. 

On these shores the experiment of a Republic has been 
tried, and thus far it may be said to have succeeded. There 
are portions of the world, however, where such an experi- 
ment has failed. If we ask for a reason, it is at hand : 



some men are capable of self-government and some are 
not. An ignorant people cannot make wise, a vicious peo- 
ple will not make just laws. A capacity for self-govern- 
ment, then, implies that at least the majority of the citizens 
are intelligent and virtuous. To desire for a rude, unletter- 
ed and demoralized population, a republic or a democracy, 
were to crave for them anything but true liberty. The 
wisdom and virtue of the founders of our Republic, placed 
it on its firm basis. The liberal and enlightened policy they 
bequeathed to their descendants, has saved us from even the 
attempts of despotism. And the problem of the perpetuity 
of our institutions is to be solved, not by inquiring, is a 
republic more stable than a monarchy, but, are means pro- 
vided and carried into execution, of rendering our citizens 
capable of self-government 1 We may suppose some true- 
hearted friend of his country to sit down to examine this 
question; and, summing up the number of institutions of 
learning and places for religious instruction, the number of 
instructors in both departments, to enjoy the satisfaction of 
having ascertained that in these things the supply is fully 
equal to the demand. But what is true to-day may not be 
true a year hence. Our population increases at the rate of 
over 600,000 per annum. The means, then, for diffusing 
learning and virtue, adequate to the wants of one year, fall 
far short of the demand the next. The increase of voters, 
by adoption and by native born citizens arriving to maturi- 
ty, is wonderfully rapid. These make our laws and fill our 
public offices. And if the safety of the republic depends 
upon the virtue and intelligence of the law-making and the 
law-executing power, are the means for qualifying these 
citizens for their position commensurate with the rapid in- 



crease in numbers of those who need such preparation 'I 
Such questions it becomes us to look in the face and answer, 
for sooner or later they will demand a response. 

I know the reply of individualism is the answer of Cain, 
" Am I my brother's keeper V It is the reply which a de- 
votion to dollars and cents may prompt. But it is not 
that which becomes scholars, and patriots, and Christians. 
When we seek to elevate the masses, our labor is of little 
profit, unless they in turn extend the boon when we are 
gone, and in regions beyond the sphere of our influence. 
And we ill requite the sacrifices and labors of those who 
gave us our literary and religious advantages, if we use 
them but for our individual benefit. 

The questions, then, what is to be done and how 1 address 
themselves to us as Alumni, who, thankful for what our 
Alma Mater has done for us, now revisit her halls to assure 
her of our interest and co-operation in the work she is doing 
for others. 

We might, and not in the spirit of the alarmist, but in 
that of the patriot, attempt to sketch the actual state of our 
country as it regards the intelligence and morality of its 
citizens ; we might point wilh pride to our facilities for im- 
parting a knowledge of the common and most useful 
branches of learning to almost every inhabitant ; the many 
institutions where not only higher acquirements may be 
secured, but mind may be disciplined ; the zeal of our va- 
rious religious bodies ; the sterling integrity often witnessed, 
and the prevalence of which gives confidence to the hope 
that our country as yet, and for a long period to come, is 
secure. But on the other hand, it were not candid to over- 
look the yearly increasing bitterness of party and sectional 



strife, the crime in high places, the want of principle among 
legislators, the symptoms of insubordination and riot in 
many quarters, the lawless and piratical expeditions which 
government seems too weak to restrain. And when we find 
the cause of these things to lie mainly in that excess of in- 
dividualism, that " every man for himself" principle, which 
tends to anarchy, — in want of reverence, not only for what 
is sacred, but for that which on every principle of order 
and good breeding is entitled to respect, — in the insubordi- 
nation of youth, — the readiness to lend a favorable ear to 
every new experiment in government or morals, whether 
their authors are qualified to propound such theories and 
experiments or not, and even if the trial would involve the 
overthrow of what is known to be sound and efficient, and 
the adoption of what is not known to be either wise or ex- 
pedient ; — the simple fact that these things are so, suggests 
the more than probability that our country may be in dan- 
ger, and enforces the conviction that this is no time for 
those who love their country to whisper peace, and do no- 
thing to avert the impending calamity. 

What is to be done ? is readily answered. In a country 
where the people rule, means must be provided for qualify- 
ing them to become rulers. But who are the people? 
Take those now on the stage of life, at the ballot box, in 
the market place, and in the fields, acting the part of citi- 
zens. On them an influence may be brought to bear. We 
may, to some extent, reclaim the vicious, refine the rude, 
instil a love of country, a love of home, a love of virtue, 
and a love of God. But they are passing away, and the 
culture bestowed upon them alone will end in a light har- 
vest, while the future crop may be choked through neglect. 



And if we labor for those who are citizens now, there are 
those among them whose pride will render them inaccessible 
to our efforts; some too bigoted to be instructed; and 
some too old to learn. Then while we do what we can for 
the present, our proper sphere of labor is with the rising 
generation. If you can discipline their minds, impart to 
them virtuous principles and the fear of God, you have at 
once trained up good citizens, capable of becoming wise 
law-makers, honest and able statesmen, all that our country 
requires. 

There are hopeful signs in the fact that our people are 
awakening to the necessity of providing for the poor an 
education. If the rich alone were to rule, if they alone 
were to be our voters, our office holders, and our law-makers, 
then, with some plausibility, but not with safety, might the 
nation neglect its poor. But we give them equal rights, 
yes, and even those whom we have not taught the bare ru- 
diments of a common education, we invite to the polls, to 
cast their votes for men to carry out measures, the wisdom 
of which is yet a problem unsolved by the profbundest 
statesmen in the land. However it may sound in a political 
harangue to cry, " Vox populi vox Dei" is it not an ab- 
surdity which none can fail to perceive, to ask the man who 
cannot read, who cannot put together premises and draw a 
conclusion upon any subject beyond the routine of his daily 
toil, whose judgment you would not ask, whose opinion you 
would not take upon any matter where sound sense is re- 
quired — to ask such a one, by casting his vote, to give his 
opinion upon the profoundest questions of political econo- 
my ? We are not here to discuss the suffrage question, but 
this we would do, and this must be done, if we would se- 



8 

cure permanency for our institutions — educate, intellectually 
and morally, our citizens; give them, in youth, such in- 
struction and discipline as shall qualify them for giving an 
intelligent and an honest opinion when the country shall re- 
quire it. 

The poor, the ignorant, the lower classes! other than 
demagogues have need of their aid. Other than political 
aspirants may speak of them and for them. Trodden 
down by wealth and power, and contemned by pride though 
they may be, we measure our words when we say it, they 
are the most important class in any country. Ancient na- 
tions of renown have left monuments to tell us how great 
they were, and their relics disclose the fact that with their 
fall the world went backward, and lost attainments in art 
and science which this age of progress and invention and 
boasted intelligence has not equalled. But why did they 
fall % why were their treasures of learning and skill buried 
with them ? They neglected the poor — the lower classes ; 
and when barbarous hordes came down with sword and fag- 
got, the rich and the noble, the sole possessors of learning 
and refinement and skill, were swept away, while the poor 
who escaped the desolation, were scattered among other 
nations, not to carry with them art and knowledge, but 
only to tell of the greatness of the people whom they had 
served as slaves. The divine Author and Finisher of our 
faith found his first disciples among the poor; and though 
he came as a Saviour of all, and his mission was to the peo- 
ple of all classes, yet for centuries, among the lowest 
orders was found the great body of Christians. This, too, 
in an age when the masses were kept low, and not as with 
us, granted a power and an influence. But that holy faith, 



9 

whose seed was first planted among the common people, 
whose first teachers and martyrs were among the lowly and 
despised, has now spread to every quarter of the world, and 
yet shall penetrate every heart and every home. 

And if in nations, where the masses were denied political 
rights, and kept poor and ignorant and debased, they were 
in fact the important class, what may be their position in a 
country like ours, where as citizens they stand on a level 
with the most refined, the most wealthy, and the most 
learned % Those whom we call the lower classes— what are 
they ? what our fathers were ; and we are what their chil- 
dren shall be. Yes, let us trace our ancestry ; and how 
many generations back shall it be before we find them in 
the hovel of poverty, the tillers of the soil, the common 
day laborers, ignorant, uncultivated, rude, perhaps vicious, 
but undoubtedly despised? Trace the ancestry of the 
greatest statesmen of our country, whom living we honor, 
and whom dead the nation mourns. The sires of the giant 
intellect and noble worth were nursed in the lap of ignor- 
ance and poverty. Nay, go now if you will to the cheer- 
less garret of the city, to the lone hovel on the moor, 
among the diggers of our canals and the builders of our 
railroads, the people of rude speech and coarse manners, 
and behold there the sires of our country's future states- 
men and heroes, her future Clays, and Websters, and 
Washingtons. For this is the peculiar feature of our coun- 
try. Industry and honesty must and will secure a com- 
petence, a competence will secure the means of education, 
and among the educated, success is not to the rich, not to 
the poor, not to the high or low born, but to the persever- 
ing. But if men will assert that the history of the past 



10 

affords no ground of conjecture for the future, if a super- 
cilious pride will sneer with incredulity when we assert 
that the men yet to be born, whom the nation will honor 
and whose favor the descendants of the proudest among us 
shall court, will trace their parentage back to the ignorant, 
the beggar, the pauper, the laborer of our day, then let 
them at least grant this, which no sophistry can disprove, 
that the children of the now humbler classes shall one day 
hold in their hands the balance of political power. On 
them must depend the destiny and the welfare of the na- 
tion. With them must rest the decision of the question, 
whether ours is to be a free and intelligent, or an enslaved 
— a Christian or an infidel nation. That will be no question 
if we but permit them to grow up in ignorance and vice ; 
that will be no question if Christians suffer them to grow 
up Godless. 

Let us not be misunderstood. Let it not be thought 
that we would overlook the children of the rich, or transfer 
to them the neglect shown to the poor. But here is another 
peculiarity of our country. The poor may rise, but the 
rich may fall. Let the poor be industrious and virtuous, 
and there is no power here to keep them down. Let the 
rich be idle and vicious, and there is no power here to hold 
them up. Let the rich be wise and virtuous, and it shall 
add to the power which wealth confers^ Let the poor be 
idle, and the privilege of citizenship will not save them 
from destruction. Of the poor we may calculate with mo- 
ral certainty, that if not this, the next — or if not that, the 
following generation, will move in a higher sphere than that 
of their fathers. But what is to be the position of the de- 
scendants of those commonly called the higher classes ? 



11 

The answer is to be found in the history of wealth in our 
country. One man by plodding industry accumulates a for- 
tune ; neither miserly nor prodigal himself, lie trains his 
family to the proper use of wealth. An education is se- 
cured for the children, the taste is cultivated, the home is 
adorned with modest beauty, not with gaudy display. At 
the close of life he finds himself surrounded with comforts, 
perhaps even with tasteful elegancies, his children engaged 
in active life, not squandering the fortune his toil acquired, 
but using in a proper and Christian manner the advantages 
his money was able to procure. Such a family will not sink 
to poverty. And while such principles obtain, its descend- 
ants will continue to be useful to the Church and the country. 

But another man acquires his wealth with toil and miser- 
ly frugality. His family are denied the comforts and al- 
most the necessaries of life ; his poor children find in their 
home no nursery of refinement, and elegance, and taste. 
Knowledge costs too much, and they are ignorant of all but 
the common branches ; they are employed to help the fa- 
ther earn, and the father's instructions are confined to teach- 
ing the family how to save. The man dies and leaves a 
fortune to be disposed of. And it is"disposed of. Some, 
indeed, may inherit the parent's parsimony, and go on in 
the parent's path. But some — and this is most likely — 
who have been kept from every reasonable indulgence — 
like Tantalus, within the reach of that they were not per- 
mitted to touch — ere yet the old man's corpse is cold in the 
ground, pounce like vultures upon the hoarded store, and 
speedily consume it. If they come not to poverty, their 
children quickly do ; and must begin again from the stand- 
point of their grandfather. 



12 

Another man begins miserly, but the love of display is 
his weakness. He has too much worldly wisdom, however, 
to spend before he has amassed. But when means permit, 
he builds in style, teaches his family to live in style, gives 
his children a stylish education, the alphabet of which is to 
forget that their father once was poor, and remember that 
they are in a sphere above the poorer classes. He becomes 
perhaps a successful speculator, and wealth pours in in 
more abundant streams. He must, as he says, provide for 
his family ; and this means the giving them every luxury, 
the saving them from the necessity of labor. He dies and 
bequeaths to his children a princely fortune, and the art of 
spending it in a princely manner, but not the art of replen- 
ishing it as it goes. With the next generation that fortune 
vanishes, and the uphill work from poverty to wealth must 
be begun again. 

These examples are the history of wealth in our country ; 
and hence we repeat, that while we may calculate with mo- 
ral certainty that the descendants of the present poor will 
one day be rich, the descendants of the majority of those 
now wealthy will become poor. 

But then, it may be said, on the other hand, that if this be 
so, what we do for the masses now will be but temporary 
in its effects ; they or their children will become rich, but 
their descendants will become poor ; and what we do now, 
future generations must do again. It is true that the work 
now begun must be continued by those who follow us ; and 
yet, it is not true that effectual efforts for the masses will 
be temporary only. For it is not true that they who amass 
riches must necessarily misuse them. Why is it that the 
man who acquires wealth hoards it or squanders it ? It is 



13 

because his mind has never been enlarged by a liberal edu- 
cation. Take the youth at an age when he should be in 
college halls amid the studies of a refined literature — place 
him in a station where all he is taught is, how to save, how 
to bargain, how to entice customers ; and when his own 
earnings shall release him from the necessity of toil, or war- 
rant him in expending, how shall he use his wealth 1 Shall 
he surround himself with works of art? But he has no 
taste. A part of his education was to deny himself the en- 
joyment of these. Shall he spend his leisure hours in a 
well stored library 1 But the love of books was banished 
from his youthful mind. Shall he found and endow lite- 
rary institutions ? He has never learned the nature of 
these. Or hospitals, or asylums for the unfortunate ? But 
the habits he has acquired have taught him never to ex- 
pend without a substantial return ; and charity occupies so 
obscure a department in the education of trade, that late in 
life it will be found a difficult lesson to learn, that " it is 
blessed to give." 

What more can you expect of such a man, than that he 
should give his children expensive habits and withhold from 
them the art of acquiring wealth ? His aim from child- 
hood has been, to attain a position where he may enjoy 
and not work, expend and not be compelled to accumulate. 
And he fancies that he is showering blessings upon the 
heads of his children, when he is giving them in youth what 
he was compelled to wait for until old age. But he will 
give his children an education ! O, yes ! But it is because 
that elevates them in society ; and it is not knowledge, not 
discipline, but elevation in society, that he seeks for them. 
And so his daughters may have a fashionable education : 



14 

we all know what that is. His sons may, yes, must gradu- 
ate at a college ; but the diploma is the object sought, and 
an institution where the diploma may be obtained without 
much mental exertion, will answer the father's purpose just 
as well as one where they must study — and the children's 
purpose much better. 

But if you can take the poor youth, discipline and en- 
large his mind by study, cultivate his judgment and his 
tastes, store him with useful information, and give him 
pious habits, then send him forth upon the world : could 
you do this with every poor youth in the land, what a scene 
would our country present to the world ! And, in respect to 
wealth, when cultivated men have acquired it, then may we 
look to find our country the home of scholars, of patrons, of 
literature, the nursery of art, and the dwelling of godliness. 
Then wealthy parents will be at no loss how to employ 
wealth to the best advantage of children. They will know 
what education to give, for they will know what education 
means, and what its value is. 

If, then, the children of the masses are to become our 
voters merely, we owe it to our country so to educate them 
that they may learn to exercise that prerogative intelligent- 
ly and honestly. If they are to become our legislators and 
our statesmen, what can compensate for- the neglect of them 
now % Or if you view them as future parents and citizens, 
the future possessors of wealth, on whose taste the cultiva- 
tion of our country's literature and art — on whose piety the 
character of our country's religion shall depend — the appeal 
in behalf of the youth of the masses touches the very heart 
of every christian scholar and patriot. 



15 

But there is one point bearing upon our duty to the com- 
mon people, upon which we shall barely have time to 
touch. There are, and perhaps ever will be, among us, 
men of talent, men of shrewdness, men of ambition, but 
without principle ; men who seek stations of political pow- 
er. But their success depends upon their favor with the 
masses. They must court them ; and accordingly, they 
watch the popular breeze before they spread their sails. 
But you make the masses educated and virtuous, you force 
the unprincipled politician into wise and virtuous measures. 
He will find that votes are not to be purchased by flattery 
or by gold ; but if he will seek the favor of our intelligent 
and honest people, he must lay aside his arts and act from 
principle ; or, if he will be the mere demagogue still, he 
will find his success to depend upon adherence to his coun- 
try's welfare, and in her interest will he seek and find his 
own. 

Gentlemen of the House of Convocation — since most of 
us left these halls, and were sent out upon the world to take 
part in the active duties of life, our Alma Mater has as- 
sumed a new position. She stands now before our country 
as the first, and as yet the only free college. Her doors 
are thrown open, and she invites now the youth of the 
masses to enter, and on a perfect equality with the sons of 
the opulent and refined, to practice the athletics which shall 
fit them for the contest of life. If our country's future wel- 
fare depends upon the care and culture bestowed upon those 
who, now in an obscure, shall one day hold a more promi- 
nent position as citizens, then to her claims upon us as 
Alumni, our Alma Mater has further claims as patriots. If 



16 

the hallowed memories of the past, if gratitude for what 
she has bestowed upon us, have made her dear, then to 
these is added the consideration that she is now doing a 
work, a noble work for our country, which none other has 
undertaken. Here the youth of the masses may be pre- 
pared for acting the part of citizens : not now as in former 
days, need they be sent forth to accumulate wealth before 
they have learned how wealth may best be used : but here 
mind may be disciplined, sound scholarship may be attain- 
ed, taste may be cultivated, character formed and moulded 
under a refined and virtuous influence, fitting youth to act 
the part of citizens, not as voters merely, but as the heads 
of homes and households, the centres of influence, as politi- 
cians, as statesmen, as law makers and rulers, as guides and 
instructors of youth, and in the capacity of Christian minis- 
ters, as guides and instructors of old and young. These 
are positions which must be filled, and here the poor are 
invited to send their sons to be qualified to fill them? 

The nation has need of soldiers ; it knows that none are 
competent for high stations in the army and navy save 
those who, by long and thorough training, are qualified for 
them. But the nation has far greater need of citizens and 
statesmen. Mental discipline and moral training are the 
indispensable qualifications for these. It is not charity for 
government to educate without cost those who are to direct 
her fleets and armies ; and it is not mere charity for Chris- 
tian patriots and scholars to educate without cost, those who 
are to wield the destinies of the nation. The rich are not 
excluded here because the poor are invited to enter ; and 
where is the mere charity institution which expends labor 
free of cost upon the rich ? 



17 

Bather let us recognize in this institution, the practical 
carrying out of republican principle, — placing rich and poor 
upon the same level, giving them equal advantages, and 
knowing no distinction but that of merit. And if some, 
tenacious of their position as members of families who can 
trace their ancestry back for three or four generations, or 
some, strutting in the pride of newly acquired wealth, fear 
that their sons should be soiled, or lose some of their refine- 
ment by contact with those who were reared in homes of 
rude and simple frugality — if such be their objection to an 
institution that is free, let them know that they must seek 
a college education for their sons in some place not on this 
continent. In every college in the land are to be found 
sons of the poor. Charity has placed them there, or their 
own unconquerable industry, earning a support in leisure 
hours, has placed them there. And what is the effect of 
this contact of the rich with the poor, the refined with the 
rude, in that miniature world, the halls of a college ? What 
was our experience, gentlemen, as under-graduates of this 
institution % We have seen, when this was not a free col- 
lege, in the same class, wealth and refinement in noble 
strife with poverty and rudeness ; and industry and merit 
alone decided the contest. We have seen them on a level 
in societies and in hours of recreation, and we have all 
marked the true gentleman, whether he were rich or poor. 
We have seen the glittering fop humbled by the side of one 
of nature's gentlemen, the son of an honest artizan. We 
have seen the truly noble spirit, the son of wealth, impart- 
ing a polish to his humbler classmate, and himself losing 
none of his refinement. And when the four years' course 
was run, and the diploma was bestowed — in this college not 
c 



18 

given unless earned — we have seen them leave these halls, 
the son of the opulent not less dignified and graceful, the 
son of humbler parentage not so rude as when he entered. 
True refinement of character does not tarnish by contact, 
while the real gem with roughened surface parts with what 
is worthless only, and comes forth resplendent in its own 
brilliancy. 

But there is one feature more which I must notice ere we 
separate. When you have disciplined and stored with 
knowledge the mind of the youth, softened his manners and 
refined his taste, is he then qualified for filling any and 
every position to which as a citizen he may be called ? 
There are, alas! even now such men, but totally destitute 
of moral principle. Are they fit for any station in life ? 
Then for the youth of the masses there must be a moral 
discipline and nurture. But where shall we find the basis 
of a sound morality, but in the precepts of Christian piety? 
But methinks I hear at once the cry of sectarianism. Would 
that any outcry could cure the evil. But the deed is done. 
Christians are divided, and we must take things as they are, 
since they cannot be as we would have them. The faculty 
of a college must work as a unit if they would work effi- 
ciently. To exert a religious influence the work of religious 
instruction must be undertaken by some one of the religious 
bodies of Christendom. The whole matter is very simple. 
Commit this work to a faculty who are divided in sentiment, 
and a portion of religious instruction must be omitted. 
There are conflicting schools in philosophy. But for that 
reason must philosophy be erased from the list of studies? 
And because Christians differ, shall the youth of Christian 
parents be sent out into the world to act the part of citizens 



19 

of a Christian nation utterly destitute of a Christian educa- 
tion % But if this must be imparted, the work is well done 
only where there is unity of sentiment among the instruc- 
tors. They who claim that these differences are all unimpor- 
tant, can surely have no fault to find that here one set of 
views obtain in preference to some other. But however 
this may be, to send out upon the country an army of 
young men endowed with the power which knowledge and 
mental discipline give, without hearts that have been taught 
to reverence what is sacred, to hallow the name of God, to 
cherish a love of man founded upon a love of God, without 
a character moulded under the softening, humanizing, enno- 
bling influence of the Christian religion, is to confer no ben- 
efit upon our country. It is placing power in hands unfit to 
wield it. Ignore the fact as men will, those wild schemes 
of social polity which have deluged a nation with blood, 
those mad plans of reform which, upon mere experiment, 
would overthrow all systems which age has made venera- 
ble and experience has proved stable, these had not their 
origin in Christian hearts and minds. That refinement which 
ministers to luxury and sensuality was never taught in a 
Christian institution. That vile ambition exhibited in the 
man of talent, who suffers himself to be used as the leader 
of a lawless mob of freebooters, was never nourished in 
halls where a Christian education was instilled. And if 
some honest alarmist, contemplating the scenes of riot, and 
dissipation, and crime, alas, too frequent among us, points 
to these black spots in our national character, as presages 
of a certain ruin, we can tell him that that dread calamity 
may be averted when Christian scholars shall pledge their 
hearts and hands to the task of imparting to the children 



2a 

of the masses a sound, a thorough, a Christian education. 
Yes, and we can pledge security for all time to come, 
when to the now desert wastes of our frontiers we send col- 
onists, not less hardy and enterprising, but more enlightened 
and more virtuous than those who now astound us with 
their deeds of daring, while they shock us with their law- 
lessness and their crimes. 

Gentlemen, we live in an age of many projects and many 
reformers. There is a vast amount of wild scheming and 
idle theorising : the aim of all which is, to cure certain ills 
and obtain a fancied good. We must not, however, shut 
our eyes to the fact, that while there is no tenet so absurd 
as not to obtain disciples, so there is no theory which gains 
currency, but there is in it some element of truth. The 
very fact that there is a call for reform shows that reform 
is needed ; and, though the evils denounced may be magni- 
fied, and the remedy proposed may be worse than the dis- 
ease, yet it is folly to shut our eyes to the existence of real 
evils, or deny the necessity of reform. But if we would 
destroy evil we must first destroy its cause. And whatever of 
wrong may afflict society, can you not trace it all to narrow 
views and vicious principles, — the want of knowledge and 
the want of virtue X So that among all the reformers of 
the present age, they who direct their efforts to the over- 
throw of some particular enormity, or they who expend 
their labor to vindicate the rights of some particular class, 
these are not the men who are to renovate society. Their 
sphere of labor is too narrow ; their remedies are partial ; 
they leave the root of bitterness untouched ; leave it in some 
new quarter to throw out new shoots the moment the old 
are destroyed. No, there is a principle old as creation, 



21 

given by the Creator himself, and never yet abrogated. It 
is, that if you would have good men and wise men, you 
must make them such in youth. Here is the very root of 
the matter. Here is where reform is to begin. Our coun- 
try's future welfare must depend upon the character of its 
future citizens, those who are now our youth; and you may 
rest assured that they and they only are true reformers, 
who begin the work here, — taking the children of the rich 
and the children of . the poor, giving them the knowledge 
which citizens require, and the principles which freemen 
need to guide them. ^ 

Gentlemen, to this noble work of elevating the youth of 
our country, poor as well as rich, our Alma Mater now 
stands pledged before the world; and as her children, grate- 
ful for the past, as men who love their country, to whom 
its honor is sacred and its welfare is dear, let us come nobly 
forward to her aid, ready, in her behalf, for sacrifice and 
for toil. 











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